


Flickering Light

by bearonthecouch



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Family Feels, Gen, Post-Star Wars: Rebels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:35:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24989179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearonthecouch/pseuds/bearonthecouch
Summary: The Emperor’s iron fist squeezed tight around world after world. Jacen held an image of his dead father in his hand and smiled shyly at his mother.
Relationships: Hera Syndulla & Jacen Syndulla
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Flickering Light

The day Hera walked into her son’s cramped bedroom on the  _ Ghost  _ and saw his toys hovering in midair, she immediately started crying. Little Jacen whirled on the open doorway and grinned at her, biting his lip in concentration. He toddled toward her, letting the toys fall, and he tugged on her hand. 

“Why’re you cryin’, Mommy?” 

Hera gathered him up in her arms and held him on her hip. She gently kissed his temple, and ran her hand through his hair, which was growing too long again. 

“Are you sad?”

“No, Jace. Well… maybe a little. I just haven’t seen anyone do something like that since your Daddy.”   
  
And her heart clenched with fear, with the knowledge of what her little boy’s Force sensitivity would mean in this galaxy where the Empire reigned, where any connection to the Jedi, however slight, could be a death sentence. 

It was one of the many times over the past few years that she wished they’d found Ezra. She needed someone who knew about Jedi things, and more importantly, someone who’d known Kanan better than even she did, probably. 

Jacen struggled in her arms, and she let him down. He ran over to the little shelf next to his bed where Sabine’s painting of his father stood. 

Hera, and all the rest of his adopted family, had been telling him stories about Kanan since the day he was born. But through some silent, mutual agreement, they downplayed the displays of power and the mysterious connection to the cosmos that Kanan had possessed. No one ever mentioned the Force. Jacen Syndulla had never heard of the Jedi. 

_ Not yet _ , Hera told herself.  _ Maybe one day when he’s older.  _ One day when the galaxy is safer. The way things stood now, things looked bleak for the Rebel Alliance. Their base at Hoth had been destroyed, less than a month ago, and the survivors were scattered. Many of them had gone off the grid, unwilling or unable to fight. 

The Emperor’s iron fist squeezed tight around world after world. Jacen held an image of his dead father in his hand and smiled shyly at his mother.

“Can you… do that again?” Hera whispered. “Make your toys float like that?”

Jacen shrugged. He picked up a stuffed bantha and his eyes half-closed as he stood very still and let go of the toy. It hovered lazily in the air in front of him. He cracked one eye open and found his mother, who smiled through her tears as Jacen dropped the bantha. “I did it,” he announced. 

“My special boy,” Hera murmured. Jacen picked up the bantha, with his hand this time, before he crossed the room and wrapped his arms around his mother’s leg. 

_ What about the dark side?  _ Hera wondered. She ruffled Jacen’s hair and tried to remember everything Kanan or Ezra had ever said about resisting those insidious temptations. But Jacen was just a child, barely three years old. Surely she could keep him safe. She had to. She was his mother. 

Maybe she’d take Jace to see one of his many aunts and uncles - Zeb and Kallus on Lira San, or Sabine on Lothal. It had been far too long since she’d seen any of the found family that had once made up their crew of Spectres. Being both a single mother and a general in the Alliance took up all the time she had. 

She’d heard rumors that the hotshot from the Battle of Yavin claimed to have used the Force when he ran the Death Star trench and launched the killing blow. But Hera had no idea where to find the kid, Skywalker, even if she knew enough about him to trust him with her child. No, Hera would stay with Jacen on the  _ Ghost _ , their specially carved-out bubble of safety within the dark heart of the galaxy. She would protect him, as she had once protected Ezra Bridger.

Kanan and Ezra had gone up against the Emperor’s Inquisitors countless times, but they knew how to fight. Jace was still in diapers; if the Empire came for him, he had little chance of defending himself. Of course, Hera would fight off the entire galaxy to protect her son if it came to it. Those she worked with in the Alliance had commented on her ferocity as both a mother and a pilot. Sabine had told her when she found out she was pregnant that she was an honorary Mandalorian, and Hera had accepted that honor by attempting to learn a little bit of the language. Her missteps in pronunciation made Sabine smile, but she appreciated Hera’s effort to bridge the gap between her first family and her current one. 

That decided it. She and Jace would fly to Lothal. It wasn’t his literal birthplace, but if he claimed any home planet, Hera hoped it would be that one. 

He had favorite places and things on Lothal already, he loved racing the lothcats through the fields and picking up meiloorun fruits in the markets. He had never known an Imperial presence on Lothal. That knowledge filled Hera with hope. The  _ Ghost’ _ s first major victory told her, every day, that the liberation of an Imperial-held world was not only possible, it had been done. She had done it, along with dozens of others working together, side by side. 

Hera brought the ship in for a landing, and was greeted by the familiar sight of Sabine’s colorful armor. So far as Hera knew, the girl hadn’t fought a battle in years, but her armor was a large part of her identity, and she would never abandon it. 

“ ‘Bine!” Jacen yelled, as he ran down the  _ Ghost’ _ s ramp. Sabine took off her helmet and knelt down in front of him. 

“Hey, kiddo.” She ruffled his hair and settled in to watch him play, as Hera finished powering down her ship and then came up next to her. “Been a while,” Sabine said.

“You miss me?” Hera teased.    


“You know I did.”

Hera nodded, and rested her hand on Sabine’s shoulder. The missing went both ways. They both knew that. 

“He’s just like you,” Sabine said, as Jace ran around in the tall grass with his stuffed bantha in one hand and a model X-wing in the other. 

Hera held the image of that same bantha floating in the air in her mind as she shook her head. “He takes after his father,” she said softly. 

Sabine looked at her quizzically and then looked back at little Jace. “You mean…?”

Hera nodded. “He can touch the Force.”

“I knew it,” Sabine whispered. 

“What…?”

“He touched my mind, like Ezra used to. A long time ago, he was just a baby. I thought I was imagining things.”

“Have you heard anything…?” Hera started, but Sabine was already shaking her head.

“He’ll come back,” she insisted. “When he’s ready.”

Hera nodded slowly. “Jacen!” she called, and he ran to her, a huge grin on his face. She caught him up in a hug and held him on her lap. She remembered something that Kanan had once said about the Jedi: that in the darkness of the galaxy, they were the flickering light. 

Little Jacen giggled in her arms. Her flickering light. 


End file.
